forgive me if you are reading this and you actually celebrate easter (as opposed to consuming large amounts of chocolate). neither jessica nor i are religious, but the allure of the mimosa resulted in an easter celebration. i’d never had a mimosa before, but it’s […]
our menus for the week before and after spring break: 11 mars / lisa : legumes en cocotte, mostaccioli alfredo, brown sugar pound cake 13 mars / michelle : salade nicoise, pates au pistou, ratatouille, gratin d’abricots aux amandes 14 mars / jessica lee : […]
i originally wrote this about a week ago, while i was in studio one early morning. unfortunately, lame-athena (an earlier version that is what scarpa, the uber-old, uber-slow athena machine in studio) wouldn’t let me post this then, so here it is now.
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when they asked us if we were celebrating a special occasion, keith glibly replied “a legal victory.” no need to elaborate that it was waseem’s collection of the award from his small claims telemarketing claim. shortly thereafter, keith was mortified when they asked if we were all overage; soon after that, keith was mortified when he asked for a glass of milk…en francais. the waiter: “sorry, i don’t speak french.”
a brief word or two about the decor and atmosphere before the important stuff (the food, naturally). i would have to say that the lighting was absolutely perfect. i wasn’t really a fan of the decor in general, though – probably because i don’t tend to like patterns, especially patterns with flowers. the colors were great, though – all muted grays, blues, and browns, and i did like the fact that one wall was the wine collection. (more…)
27 fevrier / betsy : bread, spinach salad, zucchini casserole, strawberry sorbet 28 fevrier / lauren : black-eyed peas, collard greens, potato-cheddar bake, squash casserole, cornbread, peach cobbler 1 mars / keith : honey-apricot chicken, mushroom risotto with sundried tomatoes, banana splits 2 mars / […]
jessica and i (or, to better describe it, jessica) decided to throw a chinese new year bash this year. we decided to celebrate the following weekend due to impending homework. on our ambitious, but not too ambitious menu: scallion pancakes, a lotus root salad, vegetable […]
after having swallowed too many bites of those awful carmel ice cream cakes, my sister and i began making our grandmother’s birthday cake every year. for the past four years or so, we’ve made variations on the same cake for her birthday, which falls on december 26th.
this year would be no different from the rest; the desired cake would be chocolate with chocolate frosting, with cherries somehow involved in the whole shebang. i was away from my very infrequently updated recipe file, which contains the chocolate cake recipe from American Classics, one of the America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks – which is, notably, different from the one in The Best Recipe. this recipe is my favorite chocolate cake recipe, and i have not yet found one to rival it. however, it was 25 miles away, so i consulted epicurious.com.
197 recipes later, i had chosen a cake – the chocolate layer cake with milk chocolate frosting. however, i wasn’t particularly excited about a milk chocolate frosting, so i sifted through more icing recipes until i had a great idea. the chocolate frosting i’ve liked most during my years of baking experience is a chocolate frosting from Cook’s Illustrated, specifically the whipped ganache that went with yellow cupcakes. when i made them last december, i slightly overbaked the cupcakes, and accordingly the combination was forgotten through the mediocrity of the overall result. however, the frosting had been fantastic – it was a regular ganache, but whipped. (more…)
it has been three years and still jessica won’t divulge the secret of her wonderful christmas cookies. every year i look forward to that little bundle of joy, which smells so happily of spices. in the past few years i’ve been able to exercise some […]
and also for the recipe junkies, here is how i made the chicken gravy which i liked so much. again, like i did for the chicken stew, i eyeballed the amounts of things in this recipe, since i used what was around to make it. […]
i went to picco on saturday night with my parents, nora, and charles. picco is a pizza/pasta place on the first floor of the new apartment building at the east berkely side of tremont street – atelier 505, where nomar reportedly looked for an apartment before being traded to the cubs. it shares the first floor with a theater and another (larger) restaurant, sibling rivalry, where we went for nora’s birthday back in november.
the restaurant itself is pretty small – it seats probably about 30 to 40. it’s nicely designed inside, all warm colors in the dining area with a white-and-stainless steel kitchen area which is visible from the eating area. along one wall there is a counter and bar, and along the other parallel wall there are tables; the wall on that side has rows of small, clear glass votives with lit candles in them, reminiscent of a restaurant i went to in florence. the restaurant in florence had a rough-hewn ecru-colored stone wall on the inside that had candle-filled holes in it here and there, as if the holes were windows into a warm, firelit room on the other side. another detail from picco’s kitchen was a white tiled wall scattered with red (as in RED) tiles here and there, just on one small expanse of the wall. (more…)
on tuesday i spent much of the cleanup picking semi-raw chicken off the roasted chickens. by the fourth chicken i was tired of picking it off, and probably didn’t pick it as cleanly as a hungrier person might have. i packed all of that chicken […]